{mosimage}*Update* Thanks to the contributions of 43 members of our community since this morning, including a very generous contribution by our own Jim Sorenson, we had our first offer accepted for this rare piece of toy collecting history. This is a remarkable achievement and an amazing – and quick! – level of cooperation by everyone in our community. Give yourselves all a round of applause and start your drooling for when the scans for this are made and released in a few weeks!

For those that may have missed it, a copy of a 1986 pre-Toy Fair catalog from Hasbro has appeared on eBay. Why is this important you ask? The catalog was put together before final coloration and tooling was decided upon for many of the figures in the images. Things like over-saturated Onslaught, blue-armor Superion, and bloated rifle Galvatron are only the tip of the iceberg!

Where do you come it? The catalog has a big price tag. A bit much for a single fan, but that's why the Allspark needs your help! We would like to ask for donations of at least $5 from those looking to help. Hopefully, we can amass enough donations to place the winning bid on the catalog! If successful, the catalog will be scanned and placed on the TFWiki as well as here on the Allspark. Also, all those that participated in the donations will have their name attached to the TFWiki page.

You can find out more about this campaign here, and then discuss it here.

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The process for acquiring the 1986 Toyfair Catalog is the following:1) Anyone who wishes to donate (suggest at least $5) send it to me via Paypal at grafferty@comcast.net. (Someone said if you mark it as a "gift," there's no fees, I don't know about this but just be aware that your contribution may be reduced by the Paypal fees.) When you do this, tell me your screen name so I know who you are! Also let me know what name you'd like to be credited by, either real or screen.

2) I'm not going to make any contact with the seller until we have a "critical mass" of donations. We have a strategy for how and when to contact the seller, and while I apologize for not sharing that with you all, we also don't want the seller to find out on accident. If this is especially disconcerting to you, please contact me privately.

3) When we have a sufficient number of donations, I'll make an offer to the seller. If accepted, we celebrate.

Assuming we don't win:1) I will refund everyone's Paypal contributions. Someone told me that if it's refunded within 60 days, the fees are refunded as well. I'm not sure about this, but simply be aware that I will just use the refund function – if Paypal keeps a piece, that's not going to be my responsibility.

Assuming we DO win:1) I'll have the catalog shipped to Walky to do the scanning and adding to the wiki.2) There'll presumably be a main page for this catalog on the wiki, and there we'll have the names (real or screen, whichever each person prefers) of contributors and credit both the Allspark community and TFWiki for the effort. I'm also assuming that throughout the wiki, when images from or mention is made of this catalog or the things from it, it links back to this page so that this credit is closely connected.3) The Allspark will maintain a mirror copy of the full scans here, crediting TFWiki for them, and every contributor will either be able to download it or be emailed a copy (although if this is made public, that would probably be best…but at least we'll want to take care of the contributors to the fund)